I just survived 27 days

My record so far. 27 days. Almost 28.

My technique was simple. While strong, go looting. Loot all the easy cabins, huts, and any place that had supplies. Also, looting all the dead animals you can find, mostly for meat.

Clothing was immediately swapped out for the warmest version. All extra clothing stored was eventually (only on an as needed basis) torn down for cloth/leather to repair/upgrade worn versions.

All newspaper was stored, and eventually turned into firestarter.

Venison was eaten first, as it was renewable, and higher in energy. Premade foods store better, so they were saved for emergencies.

Once everything that could be looted was, I turned my attention on two things. Hunting, and melting snow. It only takes one bullet to kill a deer or wolf. Make sure each shot counts. Keep your rifle repaired (I am assuming it becomes more accurate). Harvest all the meat. Then forage for wood. Fir I saved for repairing the rifle and hatchet and knife. Cedar makes great firewood. I never lit a fire that wasn't for cooking meat, or melting snow. If you get lucky and get a string of hot burning wood, stockpile lots of pure water for later.

Then, it was a long slow decay. Eat, Drink, Sleep. Wake up. Repeat.

When I ran low on meat and water, I would wait until the weather was good, and go hunting. Forage for wood. And then cook, melt snow, boil water.

Then back to the Eat, Drink, Sleep routine.

Eventually you will run out of bullets. At that point, the writing is on the wall, since there is no other way to find food. Then is becomes a balancing act of having the right ratio of food/water so you run out of both around the same time.

My survival could have gone much longer if my stupid rifle could actually hit things. Either the deer are too skitish, or that rifle has a bent barrel. Out of the 15 shots I had, I think I only bagged 5 deer. If I could have had a 1:1 kill ratio, I would have survived much longer, Likely 50-60 days or so.

How are you able to melt snow in the alpha? I get the message that it's "unavailable in the alpha".

How are you able to melt snow in the alpha? I get the message that it's "unavailable in the alpha".

Make a fire, then click the fire to open the panel for cooking/melting/boiling.

I think you are just using the rifle wrong, the zeroing is preset for longer range, so getting close to animal will make your rifle overshot everytime. Don't think you can adjust the zeroing just yet. There are other ways to hunt that don't require rifle or scavenging and would like to make video guide out of it, but sadly shadowplay or fraps refuse to work with this game at the moment.

But i will tell you the easiest way to win the 50 day achievement. Drop your condition down through starvation, which caps at -1500 meaning you don't loose any extra calories for foraging (I got at least 50 reclaimed wood on my floor). Once you need the condition backup, just eat yourself up on enough positive calories to regain condition backup while sleeping. You don't have to leave the house other then hunting.

Use rifle for wolf hunting only, steak of wolf is 1500 calories, as venison is 1000 calories. Also keep your meat raw until they are getting close to poor condition and cooking will improve it up about +50%.

Given that it takes a bit of work to actually find the rifle, and then gather ammo, then do target practice, it is not surprising that I am missing a bit. Not shooting until I see the whites of their eyes is usually a safe bet. From reality, the rifle would have to be zero'd at a very far distance to put the sights off that much. A standard 100m zero should only put the bullet path up a centimeter or two at 50 meters, not over the top of the animal. But I digress. It is Alpha. I think I will need to practice, in game.

HINT TO DEVELOPERS - Any way to create a simple Target Range map (super simple) stocked with every item in-game? It would be handy to torture test new items and how they actually work, rather than through game-play which would be hit-and-miss?

I am not sure I agree with running your calories down to -1500. That SHOULD mean your physical condition is degrading at an amazing rate, losing fat and muscle mass to feed your body. If it won't go below -1500, then keeping it there sounds more like an exploit than a valid way to survive. On the whole I am OK maintaining a positive calorie balance. It feel like it is the correct way of doing things.

You have to take in to a count, humans can survive at least a week without eating food. Ingame you can only do that for about 99 hours [4 days], since starvation reduces condition by 1% each hour (burning fat) and making you weaker in process and possibly is legit number of days cause of the cold temperatures. Having a maximum negative cap is also more balanced and realistic. It would be silly if you could have -20,000cal, so you would have to eat over 20 steaks of venison just to get positive calories. It's all about managing yourself, do you wish to ration your food at the expense of condition?

Only thing i can agree on is foraging is a bit of exploit, since there are doesn't seem to be extra penalties burning additional calories, when capped out. Iv had pretty much have at least 100 pieces of reclaimed food and 50l of water on my floor cause of this.

How are you able to melt snow in the alpha? I get the message that it's "unavailable in the alpha".

Make a fire, then click the fire to open the panel for cooking/melting/boiling.

Yeah, I know where to find it, I just thought it was unavailable because it said "Not available in the Alpha". But I was wrong, because that was for Snow Shelter, not Snow Melter. lol